


Strange Encounters

by benoitmacon (larvae)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asking Politely, Blow Jobs, Episode: e078 Distant Cousin, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream But AM Thinks You're Cute and Fun to Play With, M/M, Multimedia, Other, Psychological Torture, non-euclidian sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22635646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larvae/pseuds/benoitmacon
Summary: ¥ðµ ¢ðµlÐ ñêvêr ßðrê mê, år¢hïvï§†. JɄ₴₮ ₳₴ ɎØɄ ₵ØɄⱠĐ 几乇ᐯ乇尺 ๖ēคr thē ¢໐ຖŞêqµêñ¢ê§.. H̶̲͉̪̻̺̙̓̈́͒̌͑̋̈́̿à̵̢̞̹̫͖̘̼̬͙̌͒͝͝ ̴̢̻̱̭͋̊͗̔̇́͛̇̈́͠͠Ḩ̷̡̛̬̹͉̯̯̻̈́̾̋̔͂͐̇͋a̸̳̳͝ ̴͕͊͒̄͛̓̚̕͜H̶̛͖̑̉̀̚͝a̸̡̲͚͉̮̞̜̣̺͇̤̔͋̀́͒͌̑̃̋̓̕͘ͅCanon divergence where rather than depositing Jon somewhere deeper in the tunnels under the Institute soon after he smashes the table binding the Not Sasha, Michael keeps him for a few... well it's hard to say how long, exactly.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/The Spiral, Michael/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 36
Kudos: 199





	Strange Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has links to audio visual content on Youtube, Soundcloud, and elsewhere. Any linked videos or optical illusions are things I have watched through fully. There are no jump scares, but many of the sounds are purposefully very unpleasant so I do recommend lowering your volume. The sounds from these linked videos are meant to overlap as you read. I have no way of changing the speed at which a linked video plays but I recommend playing the timelapses on 2x. Links should be opened in another tab and kept open, so please disable autoplay on YouTube if you have it turned on (you know, like a psychopath). 
> 
> If that feels like way too many instructions I can only sympathize. Feel free to read without interacting with any of the links.

ⓣ𝐇αⓣ Ŵคş ⓥ𝐞ⓡ𝔶 ş𝐓𝓾𝐏𝕚𝓓

What do you want?

𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮’𝓼 𝓷𝓸 𝓸𝓽𝓱𝑒𝓇 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕣𝕠❀𝓂, 𝓎0𝓊 𝓀𝓃0𝓌.

What?

[ 𝔶๏ⓤ ๔Ｏ𝓝’𝓉 ⓗⒶש€ ᵗⒾ𝓂ᗴ 𝕥𝐎 𝔼𝐬Ć𝕒𝓟Ⓔ βᵉŦό𝔯乇 𝐓н𝕖ㄚ ᵍ𝓔ｔ ｈ𝐞ʳⓔ. ](https://soundcloud.com/discordantdischarge/banshee-trepidation-soundmorph-timeflux-noise-test)

The… the… the “Not Sasha”? No, but the table…

Ｗ𝒶ˢ вＩ𝐧ｄ𝓘𝐧Ǥ 𝔦ţ 𝓆𝕦𝓘𝓉ᗴ ｅ𝕗千ᗴČ𝐓Ꭵ𝐯𝐄ⓛч.

Oh. Oh no.

єשєภ ฬเՇђ คɭɭ Շђє קг๏ՇєςՇเ๏ภร ץ๏ย ђคשє ๏ภ, เ ๔๏ย๒Շ ץ๏ย ςคภ รยгשเשє Շђє๓ ภ๏ฬ.

No… no no no, no...

˙ɹoop ∀ ˙pǝǝN ˙no⅄

[ Shit. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8f18JFWDv4)

Stupid. He had been stupid to take it. But what other choice had he had? Die in the twisting underground tunnels beneath the Archive, stalked by the thing that was now very clearly not Sasha? Or, die in the twisting, sharp angled, mirror plated hallways he was in now; stalked by whatever it was that called itself Michael out there and lorded over its defenseless victims in here?

Jon was beginning to think he would have preferred dying in the tunnels under the Archive. The air had been stale, cold, and dank, and it had been miserably dark, but that was still better than the air here. Here the air wasn’t even stale it was just… wrong. Like breathing under a bell jar, but the jar was a creature whose laughter both echoed through and made up your prison.

The thing that wasn’t Sasha had at least had a mind to kill him quickly.  [ Michael was doing so by inches. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf9nzvnd1k)

Jon had been stuck on the other side of his conveniently placed door for weeks, now. Or at least it felt like weeks. He had no way to be sure. Every time he looked down at his watch it read a different time. Once, when he had tried to time a minute by counting the beats of his heart with a hand over his chest, it had turned into an arrhythmic, repeating staccato. After a few loops, he could parse it as:

[ ... -.- / - ... -.- / -. .- ..- --. .... - -.-- / .- .-. -.-. .... .. ...- .. ... - --..-- / -. --- / -.-. .... . .- - .. -. --. ](https://morsecode.world/m/eJxjYhIRCQn2VgBhP8dQd4-QSAXHIGcPzzDP4BAdBT9_BWcPV8cQTz93ANKOCoo%3D)

It was odd living out a statement he had so recently taken. He was almost surprised he hadn’t found Helen Richardson in his time here. Although, surely if Michael’s labyrinth was large enough to drive a man insane, it was large enough to keep two weary humans far from one another.

Jon didn’t feel hungry. He felt thirst every now and again in agonizing, maddening stabs, as if weeks of denial were catching up to him all at once. But these passed as quickly as they came, leaving him crumpled in pain, mouth open in a silent scream stopped dead in his paralyzed throat. The rest of his body stayed in suspended animation. His face stayed cleanly shaved, his fingernails neatly trimmed. He was, by some small mercy, untroubled by his bowels. 

As far as Jon could guess he hadn’t slept, though it was hard to tell if generously long blinks had actually been naps, since opening his eyelids only to be met with entirely new surroundings was par for the course no matter how long they’d been closed.

Jon had tried screaming, at first. He had yelled himself hoarse on the first day. He had tried asking, demanding, cursing, then pleading. All were met with silence from his host.

On the third day (by his uncertain calculations), Jon had slumped against a wall in despair. He faced a floor to ceiling mirror in an ornate gilded frame. The Archivist staring back at him looked awful. The bags under his eyes were beginning to look like bruises. His clothes, though spared from sweat stains, were clearly on their nth day of uninterrupted wear. And behind him, silhouetted against a hanging light at the end of an adjacent hallway,  [ was his captor. ](https://neave.tv/)

Jon turned his head to the right. There was nothing but a continuation of the wall he was leaned against, dotted at various intervals with mirrors and paintings. It went on quite a ways.

He turned back to the mirror in front of him. There, to his left, the wall turned sharply to a darkened hallway.  [ Michael had moved closer in the time he’d spent turned away from it. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uICM6gJkeXs)

“Are you going to kill me?” he rasped.

ⓞ𝓗, αŕ𝐜𝓱Ɨ𝐯𝕚ᔕⓉ, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 think I 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖𝕟'𝕥 b e⃣en able to คɭɭ ȶɦɨֆ ȶɨʍɛ?  [ YӨЦ'ЯΣ ЯΣMΛЯKΛBᄂY BΛD ΛƬ нι∂ιηg. ](https://youtu.be/uMhCli2tCkQ?t=226)

“So that’s it, then?” Jon’s voice nearly cracked with anger, “You’ll keep me here until I bore you into disposing of me?”

¥ðµ ¢ðµlÐ ñêvêr ßðrê mê, år¢hïvï§†. JɄ₴₮ ₳₴ ɎØɄ ₵ØɄⱠĐ 几乇ᐯ乇尺 ๖ēคr thē ¢໐ຖŞêqµêñ¢ê§.. H̶̲͉̪̻̺̙̓̈́͒̌͑̋̈́̿à̵̢̞̹̫͖̘̼̬͙̌͒͝͝ ̴̢̻̱̭͋̊͗̔̇́͛̇̈́͠͠Ḩ̷̡̛̬̹͉̯̯̻̈́̾̋̔͂͐̇͋a̸̳̳͝ ̴͕͊͒̄͛̓̚̕͜H̶̛͖̑̉̀̚͝a̸̡̲͚͉̮̞̜̣̺͇̤̔͋̀́͒͌̑̃̋̓̕͘ͅ

“Is that all you are? You feed off the pain of the people you steal? What, this what you do? You entertain yourself like this?”

ᶰ𝕆丅 𝐎ᑎ𝔩𝕪 丅𝐡𝔼ι𝐫 𝓟𝓪丨Ｎ, ₦Ø

“Oh yes,” said Jon, punctuated with an exasperated flail of his arms, “Yes, I’m sorry, I must have forgotten their loneliness and humiliation. Their confusion! Their misery!”

**んひ丂ん,** Michael was so close to the other side of the mirror now that it looked more like an oil portrait, his distorted, shifting features centimeters away from the silver backed glass.

[ ?unɹ oʇ ɓuıoɓ noʎ ʇ,uǝɹ∀ ](https://youtu.be/hu5pjj1KzK8?t=132)

“No,” said Jon, curtly.

₮₴₭, 𝓽𝓼𝓴! ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ɢ i⃣🅅єภ ʊք?

“I can hardly see a point in trying to outrun you,” said Jon. Was it true that the mirror seemed to have moved closer to him? Had he scooted forward without realizing it? The distance had shrunk more than it could have with just a lean, but the wall at his back seemed unchanged. “Feels like I would save myself a lot of trouble by sitting around and waiting to die."

𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝕟'𝕥 ᴛʜɪɴᴋ เ ฬคɳƚ ყσυ ƚσ ԃιҽ ...

“So I won’t?”

ђ๏ฬ кเภ๔ ๏Ŧ ץ๏ย Շ๏ ς๏๓קɭץ ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°°

“No, come on, you know that’s not what I m --” Jon’s words were taken from him by what felt like a tilt shift of his organs into positions exactly perpendicular to what they ought to have been. The wall behind him leaned as well, tilting backwards until he slid down it, crashing into what had recently been the ceiling head first. Through his swimming vision he might have sworn he saw the distortion creeping away from him in the mirror, walking on what looked like the ceiling but what Jon knew to be the floor. Before he could adjust, the hallway flipped again, launching Jon forward towards the mirror he’d been looking into. It didn’t surprise him how easily he sailed through its frame, as if it had always been an archway, so it really shouldn’t have surprised him how much it hurt to land. When he stood and faced the hallway he had just been pitched from, it still looked upside down. 

[ There were no right turns here. Everything went left. ](https://strobe.cool/)

It was another four days before he made his way back to right turns. He couldn’t recall exactly how he’d managed. Maybe through a painting, his skin melting into brushstrokes for a moment before solidifying on the other side. Maybe it had come to be when he’d decided to orient himself by port and starboard and the floor beneath him had roiled and pitched like a turbulent sea until he was so saltwater drunk that he couldn’t have hoped to right himself.

At one point he had stuck his hands out in front of himself to try and use the “L for left” trick he’d been taught in grade school only to discover that each of his fingers on all six of his outstretched hands looked exactly like a thumb and index finger pointing left.

Very soon after that he had lost track of time altogether. There were only so many thwarted attempts to track the length of his torment he could stand before the very idea of measuring it began to seem absurd. It began to feel odd to think about time at all. What a strange and imperceptible way to keep track of anything, really…

He wondered how quickly Elias would replace him. Would he give the staff a fortnight to mourn? All the while clearing out his office and drafting the new hire announcement memo? Would his replacement take their post before the police officially declared him missing? How long would they wait before he was legally presumed dead? Unlike poor Gertrude before him, Jon wouldn’t even leave a corpse behind.

Poor little Archivist, meddling in things he knew nothing about. A fly in a great, unintelligible web, waiting for its towhead captor to come drain it of its substance.

Even here, in a place so far removed from human dignity, Jon was ashamed to say it was self pity that brought him to his knees.

His eyes itched from how long he’d spent crying. His face felt weathered from the salt water. His body ached from all the desperate, aimless wandering and his mind ached from trying to comprehend his surroundings. He had spent so long in such constant terror that he had grown bored with it. The frayed agony of his nerves had faded into emotional background noise and his tortured mind felt unoccupied. Counting, the lone man’s steady, reliable tool in the face of maddening isolation, didn’t work here. There was no time keeping. No counting paces. No red thread to wind around the impossible corners and follow back out to freedom.

This all to say that Jon was so very tired and felt so very sorry for himself. His muscles cramped and spasmed so violently he thought his bones may snap from their seizing. He staggered down the nth dimly lit corridor stalked by shifting, peripheral shadows in the depths of the nth set of parallel mirrors, glowing amber in their myriad reflections, and he sank to his knees. He fell forward, bracing his weight on his outstretched hands, and found that he was out of tears. He couldn’t even sit and wait around to die. Michael had proven that well enough already; it would decide when and if Jon could leave this place. He shuddered to think how it could reanimate his corpse if he were allowed to become one.

Oddly enough the floor felt… nice. Jon thought at first it was the weight of his misery pressing against his slumped shoulders but, no, the floor felt… soft? He opened his eyes and realized that he was on plush, sunshine yellow carpet, the long, fluffy fibers poking out from between his fingers and sinking low beneath his palms. And it was warm, as if it had been taken from an entryway where it had been bathed for hours in summer sun. Jon could feel it yield under his weight, as if there were inches and inches of it to go before it reached solid ground.

He could have sworn the floor beneath him had been… not this. It was hard to remember what it had been, actually. Cement? Laminate? Whatever it was it had been unforgiving, that much he could remember from how often he’d been slammed bodily into it. But this was so utterly unlike anything else he’d been subjected to. It was soft. It was warm. It was inviting. He hadn’t even realized how cold he’d been until he’d had something to compare it to. His skin had been flushed but he had never stopped shivering, like he’d been running a fever. All of that had gone. Jon had sunk so deep into the plush surface beneath him that he couldn’t see past it any longer, but he didn’t care. Before he could stop himself, he nuzzled his face against it, breathing in deeply.

[ Ă̴̧̨̝̞͉̥̙̮̱̣͉̣̯̽̿͠h̶̥͎̞͔͉̻͔͋̄͜ ̵̘͙̖̫̯͉̲̠͍̫̑̓̀̋͛̈́̍̐͘̚͜ͅH̵̺̼̰̮̜͚͇̾̈́̊̎͠a̸̲͉̖̘̺̤̋̉͊̍̇͛̄̇̌̓͠ ̵̤̼̑̏̈́̅̀̿̑̂́͝H̵̹̙͉̳̲̺́̀̑̑̇̄̂̅͒̊̓̕ͅą̵̨̳̞̩̺͍͕̫͎̣̥̋͜ ̸͉̙͊̒͒̃͊̈́͐͆͆͒̔̍̿͜͝H̸̢͉̖͓̖̝̥͇̙̠͙̬͈̠͑̈́̆͋̐̃̊̾̆͘̚͝a̷̤͓̤̰̤͍̠̥̬̙̪̤̗̔͊̽͊̾͛̇̊̚̕, ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzk-l8Gm0MY) ђ๏ฬ Շєภ๔єг, คгςђเשเรՇ...

Jon yelped. He attempted to push himself up from his prone position but the floor beneath him had transformed completely into something like bedding, or fog, or soft tissue yielding to a scalpel. He couldn’t find purchase in it. Rather than bearing his weight upwards, it unbalanced him completely and flipped him on his back.

The voice had come from above him, but its owner was nowhere to be found. Jon looked about frantically but the soft whatever it was that cradled him was becoming very insistent on doing so, pulling him deeper into itself like fuzzy taffy.

“What the hell are you doing?” he managed, though his voice was muffled by how deeply he’d sunk into the floor. Michael didn’t answer, but in the silence that followed Jon found himself enveloped completely. He was falling, though the… viscosity? The density? The fuzz? Of whatever it was he was falling through ensured he did so slowly. The material that had been so tactile between his fingers did nothing to obscure his breathing, and the feeling of it was entirely different, now. Halfway between a textile and a brine without being anything like either.

[ Jon was… floating wasn’t the word. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8bXbv_irZM) He could feel something supporting his back. But was it just empty air lending a hand? Was any air in this place empty? Was it even air? At that moment Jon remembered Michael asking him if his hand in any way owned his stomach and thought for the first time of the very real possibility that he had been swallowed. Was this simply how it digested its victims? Was the extended torment necessary to extract the proper nutrients? Was being taken to pieces by a captor that couldn’t or wouldn’t exist within itself half the time the same as being cocooned in spider’s silk and melted by injected stomach acids?

ץ๏ย ɭ๏๏к ฬ๏ггเє๔

How Michael had materialized was less shocking than where it had done so, as Jon lifted his head to find its spindly form crouched between his thighs. He propped himself up on his elbows, deciding not to think about what exactly he was propped up against.

“What are you doing?” he repeated firmly. Somewhere beyond them a grandfather clock floated past. Portraits and mirrors and improperly developed photographs hung all around them, drifting past in a way that suggested they were both still moving downwards. Or else the trappings of the distortion’s summer yard sale were floating up.

[ Ⓘ… ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdWAl7vormM) the word clearly gave Michael pause, Ťн𝐎𝕦Ｇ𝕙Ｔ Ꭵ 𝕄เᎶ𝔥𝓣 ς0ｍ𝒆 т𝐎 ｓⒺ€ 𝐲ό𝕌, Ａ𝔯𝐜ⒽιѶ𝔦ⓢ𝕥

“How considerate,” Jon said spitefully. Michael paid him very little mind. Its eyes were many, and never in the same place for very long, but if he had to pick a human expression to assign them, Jon might have chosen ‘hungry’. It loomed over him like a centipede poised to coil over its next meal and raised its bulbous, non-Euclidian hands over him to rest above his head. Jon could feel its hips digging into the insides of his thighs like broken bones and surgical steel. He could also feel… not its hands roving over his body. He thought for a moment that he could be feeling the trails of its eyes but these… whatever they were, they were tactile despite being imperceptible; like being brushed over by tendrils of light. They felt like sunbeams. Like soap bubbles landing on his skin. It was decidedly… not unpleasant, but certainly off-putting to know it came from a creature so utterly opposed to subtlety or tenderness.

One of these tendrils curled under the end of Jon’s shirt and popped open the last button, tracing long, lazy loops over his belly. It flattened, like a phantom hand switching from using its fingertip to its open palm, and slid up along his chest until it came to rest at his neck. It wasn’t shaped exactly like it had a thumb and index finger, but if it did they’d be sitting at Jon’s throat. He took a deep breath in through his mouth, afraid that it would be the last time he could do so.

Michael’s shifting, plasticine face slit into an uneven grid of columns and rows and bent outwards like a sliced mango. It slithered towards the Archivist, winding towards him as if its head were moving on a set of curving train tracks. Jon could feel its chest against his. It split his skin open where it touched him, as if he’d hugged a thresher shark, and somehow he could taste the blood pooling in his mouth. Just as Jon craned his head towards its jagged, upturned lips, Michael slithered gracefully off to his left, its cascading white blond curls dragging over the skin it had just shredded with a sound like a hand closing around shards of glass. Jon could feel it licking along the side of his neck and was struck by the image of wrapping a live wire around a railroad spike.

“A- ah,” he managed, his hands darting up to brace against Michael’s shoulders, “good lord, what are you doing?” he repeated dumbly.

ℑ ωσυℓ∂ 𝔥𝔞ve 𝔱𝔥Ỗ𝐔gĦŦ 𝕋hat 𝔀𝓪𝓼  [ ßê¢ðmïñg §ðmêwhå† 𝕠𝕓𝕧𝕚𝕠ᴜꜱ... ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR9cczgmPlQ)

“Yes, well,” Jon said, looking back at Michael’s face, now, floating very close to his own, “nothing in this place ever really is.”

**н𝓜𝓜Ｍ𝔪, ⓦόᵘ𝓁𝐝 Ｙ𝕠Ｕ Ĺｉ𝓚ⓔ 𝓜乇 т𝐨 Ｓ𝕥๏Ⓟ?**

All at once, the warm yellow fluff that had so peacefully surrounded them was gone. Jon was falling. Dropping. Plummeting. Screaming downwards so quickly it threatened to rip the air out of his lungs. It was dark and icy cold, the howling wind of the newly opened void ripping fresh tears from his eyes.

“God, no!” he screamed.

Just as quickly as the buttery soft space had blinked out of existence, it blinked back. Jon was once again supported by nothing in particular, his freezing limbs now enveloped in a bright, sunny warmth. The creature obliged him, materializing so suddenly and naturally back into the space between his thighs that he couldn’t have been sure if it had ever left. It was smiling.

¿oN

“Uh, no,” Jon repeated shakily, bracing his trembling hands back against its shoulders, “No. God no. No, don’t stop.”

[ Ă̴̧̨̝̞͉̥̙̮̱̣͉̣̯̽̿͠h̶̥͎̞͔͉̻͔͋̄͜ ̵̘͙̖̫̯͉̲̠͍̫̑̓̀̋͛̈́̍̐͘̚͜ͅH̵̺̼̰̮̜͚͇̾̈́̊̎͠a̸̲͉̖̘̺̤̋̉͊̍̇͛̄̇̌̓͠ ̵̤̼̑̏̈́̅̀̿̑̂́͝H̵̹̙͉̳̲̺́̀̑̑̇̄̂̅͒̊̓̕ͅą̵̨̳̞̩̺͍͕̫͎̣̥̋͜ ̸͉̙͊̒͒̃͊̈́͐͆͆͒̔̍̿͜͝H̸̢͉̖͓̖̝̥͇̙̠͙̬͈̠͑̈́̆͋̐̃̊̾̆͘̚͝a̷̤͓̤̰̤͍̠̥̬̙̪̤̗̔͊̽͊̾͛̇̊̚̕ ](https://youtu.be/TX_X685TGtc?t=30) 𝖓𝖔𝖜 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝒾𝓈 𝒶 𝓅𝒽𝓇𝒶𝓈𝑒, คгςђเשเรՇ

Despite what he had undergone -- pinned, mounted, and diaphonized as he had been under the creature’s unrelenting duress -- Jon could feel himself blush. He laughed awkwardly, and cast his eyes down.

รђ๏ยɭ๔ เ ﻮ๏ ๏ภ, Շђєภ?

“Yes,” said Jon, in a very small voice. Because God he really didn’t want Michael to stop, even if he hadn’t been threatened with the endless howling void that opened in its absence. Whatever fresh hell this was it was damn sure preferable to the many fresh hells that had come before it and would, for all he knew, come afterwards. May as well enjoy this while it lasted. Whatever it was exactly… and however long it lasted.

ʟǟʏ ɮǟƈӄ, քʟɛǟֆɛ...

Michael’s hands moved over Jon as it brought its fractured face back to the crook of his neck. They were huge, and at a glance could cover the whole of Jon’s torso under a single palm. But his eyes proved unreliable as he felt them frame his hips, their long, twisting, unintelligible thumbs nestling gently into the grooves of his Adonis’ belt. They were unexpectedly heavy for how wildly animated they had seemed from afar, and they were wrong. Jon could feel joints bending where there shouldn’t have been any, sinews flexing against skin pulled too tight to accommodate them, nails pulling through his skin like rice paper, causing warmth to bloom in the canyons they left like spring violets and bonfire sparks.

[ Michael kissed ley lines over Jon’s chest and his lips were like shards of dry ice. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB_574IE5mU) Out of nowhere Jon could taste clover honey on his lips, and when he lapped at it, the air around him flexed with the reverberations of a contented sigh.

When Jon twisted his hands into the butterscotch yellow carpet beneath him -- because it was beneath him, now, though at times and indeed mostly, it wasn’t -- Michael made a noise that could have been a moan. It was more akin to  _ ghostly _ moaning, or else the howling of unearthly wind through narrow, winding halls, but close enough to what Jon would have expected to hear in a situation more or less exactly unlike this one that he did it again, twisting his two fistfulls of shag carpet until his knuckles brushed their root. The creature bared its teeth against his neck and Jon felt the same playful pinpricks run up his ribs and down his spine. It was unnerving to touch and be touched in ways that didn’t make any sense. It felt like reading a poem after it had been tucked into a theoretical maths coursebook and run through an industrial shredder. Which is to say it was frustrating how good it was. Jon could see Michael’s head nuzzled against his chest and its fingers in his peripherals, crawling their way over his shoulders, but he felt hot breath at his neck, ghostly hands along the inside of his thighs, surgical staples through his eyelids, silk ribbons at his wrists...

For all the physical attention it was showering him with the distortion was remarkably careful not to touch him where he needed it most. No matter how Jon angled his hips to press his near torturous erection to Michael’s thigh, his hip, or towards where he might guess those invisible, half-corporeal tendrils were heading, the creature was always just out of reach. It was becoming unbearable, just like everything leading up to it had been.

“Oh, come on,” Jon whined. It tutted at him.

ງiงē  [ คຖ iຖ¢h ](https://youtu.be/Cz4gi8mhBvw?t=10) คຖ¢н αη∂ ωαт¢h hïm †åkê å mïlê… Ƕօա քҽէմӀąղէ.  ¿ʇsıʌıɥɔɹ∀ 'ǝsɐǝld ʎɐs oʇ ɓuıoɓ noʎ ʇ,uǝɹ∀

“You can’t be s --” the protest was swiped from his lips by a feathery tendril circling its foot around the head of his neglected cock with such butterfly kiss delicacy it may as well have been a length of razor wire dragged over his skin.

“God, yes, please!” he cried out, “please just get on w --” he couldn’t finish that sentence either, as with a laugh Michael’s crooked, jagged mouth moved to take in the full length of Jon’s cock. Despite its fractured outward appearance the creature’s mouth proved warm and inviting, and the three tongues Jon could feel running swirls over his skin were eager and very nearly prehensile.

It should have terrified him, but he was long past fear. 

Jon rested a hand on the back of its head, weaving his fingers between its straw colored curls. Its scalp felt warm and… fuzzy, somehow. Like passing your hand over an old television screen and feeling the static arch off the glass. He could have sworn he felt the thing nestled in his lap let out a purr.

ɦօա ʀօʍคຖti¢,Är¢hïvï§†, its voice echoed from somewhere that likely wasn’t its preoccupied, impossible mouth.

“Please don’t stop,” Jon keened, an edge of fear making his voice shake.

[ O̶̰͍̖͔͔̖̼͐̊̊h̶͈̲̹̯͙̘͊̎̀͑̈́̀̐̄̒͗̕̕͜͠ ̴̧̨̡̧̻̘̦̼̘͇̭̑͘ḫ̴̭͗͌̎o̵̧̧̢̝̰̫͇̬̹͔͓̟͌̈́̉̒̌̎͐̽͒̌̕͜o̸̫̟͍͇̐̽ ̵̬̼̠̱̺̩̱͖̿̐͒̂͋̂́ẖ̵̢͎̹̣̖̤͔̠͂̆͜͜͜͝ơ̵̱͖̌̌͂̓̋͊͛͊͆̐͘͝o̵̯̻̗̖̫͖͕̻͙̯̥̺̦͂͂́͆͆͐̔͒̅  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=849IAjXnQjo) 𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓎🅾🆄ש’є ɭєคгภє๔ ռօȶɦɨռɢ ɦɛʀɛ ᏗᏖ ᏗᏝᏝ

Jon gasped as he felt the thing redouble its efforts, those same gossamer, barely there tendrils running over his skin, leaving trails of blazing nerve endings in their wake. It was all he could do not to buck his hips against its mouth. There were needles in his nail beds, hot sucking rings of glass at his back, bear traps at his ankles, and a tightening coil at his center that threatened to tense until it snapped.

“M-, Michael, I’m --”

¥ê§, †hå†'§ vêr¥ ¢ðñ§ïÐêrå†ê ð£ ¥ðµ,  [ Är¢hïvï§† ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MipMYhcLXTg) , Ì kñðw.

One of Michael’s hands walked its fingers across Jon’s shoulders and over the back of his neck before resting at his jaw. Two digits wormed their way into his mouth, pulling his head roughly to the side before he had a chance to turn it. They pressed firmly and evenly over his tongue, stroking a path from tip to root and back again. They were shaped like corkscrews and built like a funeral pyre. More than once Jon could have sworn their undulations bifurcated his tongue or else split his head into a Glasgow smile. They splashed over his tongue like salt water and champagne. They tickled the ivories of his teeth and put a sharp ache in his jaw.

With molten metal on his lips and blood like a handful pennies on his tongue, Jon came, the tension at his core building to a wave that rippled out through the tips of his fingers. 

Michael  [ laughed ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm78a7r_6eM) and raised its head with a slick, wet sound, snaking upwards towards Jon’s face. Its flowing blonde curls framed either side of his well spent body like translucent bed curtains. Suddenly, in a space that twisted infinitely in on itself into an incomprehensible vastness, the two were very alone, separated from the swirling, impossible horror of their surroundings by a gossamer canopy. More tricks, of course. The creature hovering over him, its wet mouth glistening lewdly under sourceless, flickering candlelight, was just as much those spiraling, fractal corridors as it was this false sense of respite and the monster that stalked through them. But it was such a pretty lie. It was so preferable to all the others. Jon reached his trembling fingers towards the cherubic imitation of a face that floated above him. Put it down to curiosity, gratitude, or post-orgasmic Stockholm syndrome, but in that moment Jon wanted terribly to kiss it. Just as he craned his neck to close the distance between their lips, the world pitched forward and twisted harshly out of his grasp.

Jon felt a pop, like his eardrums were adjusting to a sudden change in atmospheric pressure, but somehow mirrored in the very center of his soul. He was so terribly cold. He was… naked, but painfully aware of it now, the cold night air scraping like needles against his skin. His… feet hurt… why did his…?

Jon looked down to see cobblestones. He looked up to see stars. Blessed, earthly stars, bright and alien against the velvet cover of night.

He looked around and spotted Michael -- human, now, but wrongly so -- leaning its tall, lean frame against a wrought iron tree fence, its bulbous, spindly, many jointed hands hanging at its side. It was grinning.

“What the-- where in the w--” Jon brought his hands towards himself quickly, cowering against the sudden chill, “What the hell is the meaning of all of this?”

**のん ∂ση'т ƒυѕѕ, 𝓎𝑜u'𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕟𝕝𝕪 ᵃ ᵐⁱˡᵉ ❁𝓊𝓉 ʄʀօʍ ɦօʍⓔ.**

“A m- a mile?!” Jon sputtered, his teeth beginning to chatter, “Where in God’s name are my clothes?”

[ 𝓗𝓶𝓶𝓶𝓶𝓶𝓶𝓶? ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHDMpgAze1k) 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕞u §† håvê lê£է էհҽʍ…

“L- left them? Left them wh- what, inside of you?”

[ ˙˙˙ǝpnɹɔ ǝq oʇ pǝǝu ou s,ǝɹǝɥʇ 'ʍou 'ʍoN ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMkFOjROSg)

“What day is it?? What time is it?”

...ʜɔƚɒw ɿuoʏ ɘvɒɘ| ƚ'ᴎbib uoʏ ʏ|ɘɿuꙄ

Jon glanced at his wrist. It was just past three. In the morning, he would have to guess, though which morning he had no way of knowing..

“How the hell am I supposed t --” but when Jon looked up he saw Michael dissipating into the dark; like mist, or the outline of a table lamp when you screw your eyes shut against it. His smile was the last to go, leaving his broken glass laugh hanging in the air in its stead.

Jon sighed and pressed into himself. His feet were numb.

Right. A mile out. Of course it hadn’t said in which direction, so Jon picked one at random. He’d gotten quite good at that in his time spent… wherever he’d been.  [ He hugged closed to the buildings on one side of the street, praying that whichever direction his flat ended up being in, he would meet no one on his way, it would take no right turns to get there. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIAfzZp2AP4)


End file.
